“Misunderstood”

Often times I give “not-so-friendly” remarks whenever I feel something is inappropriate or in a way offensive. I really don’t know if it’s something to do with my nature or so but at times, I feel like there’s a need for me of saying something about something.

Recently, three events happened before which I don’t know if I’m just tactless or I just made the right thing yet “misunderstood”.

First, on a Microsoft Community Event that I attended to, I greeted one of my female co-junior and said “Uy, medyo tumaba ka (Hey, you’re getting bigger [than before]). Another female junior heard what I have said and told me, “Hey Patrick, don’t ever tell a girl/woman that she’s getting bigger”. I silenced myself and asked “what could be the politically correct term” to tell someone he/she’s getting bigger without getting someone offended?

Second is the one that I blogged before about the woman that I encountered on the streets about smoking.

Third would be in a way the most unexpected response that I would get and it happened in the most unfortunate place: the office. An officemate of mine sent pictures of the Glorietta blast site that included images of dead people and/or depicted human suffering. Having a background in “protecting” people’s identity in one of my college organizations (it’s actually Lingkod ER), that whenever we do marketing campaigns (aka soliciting money/medicines for the indigent patients of Philippine General Hospital in the emergency room (ER) complex), we in a way know that to let our target donors know where will their donations will go, we have to show them pictures of the type of patients that we are helping. We need to hide the identity of these people of the sake of their privacy and without due prejudice against them.

With that in mind, I hit “Reply All” to the e-mail of my officemate and replied not to send images with those type of material. I don’t know what hit me but another officemate of mine approached me that I should reply only to the sender of the mail. Nothing “bad” happened really except that some of my words became a word in most e-mails (as what my seatmate have shown me last Tuesday) with the exact words I wrote: “Sorry if I may sound KJ…”.

At any rate, I don’t really care if I’m misunderstood or not, as long as I think I’m doing the right things without stepping onto other people. Or maybe it’s just I’m not that adept in receiving sarcasm. No, I am not at odds with my officemates, it’s just that I think no one would ever understand me even if I try to explain my point. And there goes the famous line: “You can’t please everyone.” 😦

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Published by Patrick

My friends call me Patrick although I can be referred through different names - JP, John, Patrick, Yummy (unfortunately), Papa P, and so on. I am a software developer who works mostly with Microsoft technologies but consider myself open to other technologies. I have started with open source technologies but it was the Microsoft stuff that jumpstarted my career so well, so my loyalty goes to ahm, ehrm, what works best! I talk about a lot of things under the sun but even if we disagree on some discussions, I would definitely respect your views on it. Loves traveling, adventures, reading, cooking, and photography when I don't sit in front my computer. Who ever said software developers are boring people?
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One thought on ““Misunderstood””

For scenario 1, I don’t think there is a politically correct way of doing that if you are in public 😉 Now, if you were all alone (or with only a handful of trusted folks) it can sometimes be acceptable.

For scenario 3, I agree with your officemate. Whenever I feel an email is inappropriate, I usually just reply to the sender and not to all, out of respect to the sender.

Yes, I agree that we cannot please everyone but I’d also like to believe that we should try our best to be careful with our words to avoid hurting anyone, unintentional as it may be.